Make Informed Management Decisions With Records

Formulating a management plan resembles creating a scouting report.  Without knowledge of water chemistry and habitat, you can’t lead the team.   Develop a base line of information to monitor progress.  Are relative bass weights reflecting normal growth? What’s the average plankton density?  Did you meet harvest quotas?  Without these answers, you’re paddling in circles.

Invest time to maintain a journal.  During each pond visit, log:

• Weather conditions
• Water temperature
• When you fertilized
• Secchi disk readings of plankton density
• Lake level
• Lengths and weights of bass
• Numbers, sizes, and species of fish harvested
• Rainfall measurements
• Cormorant sightings
• Beaver or otter traffic and effects of their activity
• Unusual water quality or vegetation issues
• Abnormal fish movement on the surface
• Fish stockings
• Other events to establish ecological patterns

We have a customer who can relate conditions at his lake during the second week in April for the past nine years.  That information will help you make confident management decisions and become a better angler.  Such data turns a casual program into a scientifically based model.  Call for assistance with interpreting records.